Blacksburg Reads

There Will Be Cupcakes

This Friday, August 27, we kick off the Poly-Performance Series at The Easy Chair Coffee Shop for Fall, 2010.  Megan Moriarty and Katherine Sullivan wasted no time relaunching this popular event which drew the largest audiences and most diverse performers of any open-mic type event ever held at The Easy Chair Coffee Shop.

You’re invited to bring your “stuff.”  We’re looking for people who would like to read/perform:

1 to 5 poems
up to 5 pages of a short story
1 to 3 songs (original or cover)
up to 5 minutes of some other type of creative endeavor

We cannot promise we won’t be attacked by zombies before it is over, but we promise there will be cupcakes.

Mark your calendar and be sure you don’t miss the best little music festival on the Bluegrass Trail. This blurb from NewportFest.com best describes the event:

“Eleven years later after the initial party, Newport Fest has grown into a small festival occurring every Labor Day weekend hosting several hundred patrons, a dozen local and regional bands, and an unsurpassed grassroots effort dedicated to music and community.”

We’ve witnessed the effort that goes into this show on the part of the musicians, the volunteers and Half Acre Promotions and Newport Fest is the best way to close out the summer for fans of local music.  Camping is available and nourishment from Old Virginia Smokehouse and The Easy Chair Coffee Shop will surely keep you fortified to dance into the night.

Mountain Legend Express (video above) is just part of a great lineup.  For band schedule and complete event info go to NewportFest.com.  Facebook users can RSVP at the event page: Newport Fest 11.  Hope to see you there!

The Giving Tree

The Henderson Lawn Sycamore comes down today in Blacksburg. If you have a photo or a favorite story of time spent under and around this beautiful tree, please post in comments or contact us (dispatches at blacksburgreads dot com). Perhaps you will plant a tree to memorialize the day. Maybe you’ll find a copy of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree and read it. Whatever your thoughts on this sad occasion, we’d like to hear them.

A Gift for the Village Trailer from Tom Landon on Vimeo.